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Koreanic languages

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Koreanic
Geographic
distribution
South Korea, North Korea, Northeast China, Far East Russia
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions
Glottologkore1284
The Koreanic languages

The Koreanic languages are a language family consisting of the modern Korean language together with extinct ancient relatives closer to it than to any other proposed links. Among extant languages, Korean is considered by most linguists to be a language isolate and by some as part of the widely rejected Altaic family or the disputed Dravido-Korean languages.[1]

The Jeju language of Jeju Island, considered by some as a dialect of modern Korean, is distinct enough to be considered a language in its own right by other authorities. Some consider that rather than being a language isolate, Korean forms a small language family, together with Jeju.

Classification

The periodization of the historical stages of Korean is as follows:

  • Before 1st century: Proto-Korean
  • 1st to 10th century: Old Korean
  • 10th to 16th century: Middle Korean
  • 17th century to present: Modern Korean

Ancient Koreanic languages

Several ancient languages of the Korean peninsula—Silla, Buyeo, Goguryeo, Dongye, Okjeo, Baekje, Gojoseon and Ye-Maek—may have been ancestral to, related to, or part of Old Korean. Two branches are sometimes posited, Buyeo and Han.[2]

In ancient times, Koreanic languages, then established in southern Manchuria and the northern Korean peninsula, expanded southward to the central and southern Korean peninsula, displacing the Japonic languages spoken there and possibly causing the Yayoi migrations.[3][4][5][6][7] There is disagreement over the protohistorical or historical period during which this expansion occurred, ranging from the Korean Bronze Age period to the Three Kingdoms of Korea period.

Modern Koreanic languages

Modern Korean is traditionally considered a single language. However, Jeju (Cheju) is sometimes classified as a distinct language, for example in the UNESCO atlas on endangered languages. If that is accepted, there are two modern Koreanic languages, Jeju and Korean proper.[8]

Members

See also

References

  1. ^ Kim, Chin-Wu (1974). The Making of the Korean Language. Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai'i.
  2. ^ Young Kyun Oh, 2005. Old Chinese and Old Sino-Korean
  3. ^ Bellwood, Peter (2013). The Global Prehistory of Human Migration. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 9781118970591.
  4. ^ Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean". Korean Linguistics. 15 (2): 222–240.
  5. ^ Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8.
  6. ^ Whitman, John (2011). "Northeast Asian Linguistic Ecology and the Advent of Rice Agriculture in Korea and Japan". Rice. 4 (3–4): 149–158.
  7. ^ Unger, J. Marshall (2009). The role of contact in the origins of the Japanese and Korean languages. Honolulu: University of Hawai?i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3279-7.
  8. ^ Janhunen, Juha, 1996. Manchuria: an ethnic history
  9. ^ a b Lee & Ramsey, 2000. The Korean language